This Probably Doesn't Look Like Organic Waste to You

This is a photo of solid waste, already inside the receiving pit at one of our plants. It's off-spec retail food products, still in the original cans, cardboard cases and shrink wrap. This will give you some idea of how powerful and effective our pre-processing system is--it allows us to routinely accept and process loads that no composting facility would consider. We fully remove the inorganic impurities first, and then make energy from what's left.

Anaerobic Digesters Thrive on Many Different Wastes

When making energy, we refer to the types of waste that we receive as feedstocks. Anaerobic digesters can work with an incredibly-wide range of different feedstocks--virtually any type of organic material can be an effective food source for the bacteria that make their home in our digesters. A brief summary of some of the major feedstock categories follows. If you think you have quantities of an unusual waste stream that might work, please just ask us--we'll either already know about that waste, or can undertake some simple lab analyses to determine its potential. Never forget the remarkable flexibility of digesters. There's no reason why a single facility can't be used to simultaneously process multiple categories of feedstocks from the descriptions below.

Municipal wastes

Increasingly, municipalities in Europe and North America are collecting food wastes as part of their systems to divert wastes away from landfill. Commonly referred to as Source-Separated Organics (SSO), this type of waste is an ideal digester feedstock. SSO has been a profound challenge for the composting industry, given its potential to create odour and problems with inorganic impurities such as plastic. A well-designed digestion facility will not produce any off-site odours, and is much better at deftly separating out plastic and other materials than any composting facility can be. The potential for energy revenue also means that digesters are much cheaper to operate than composting facilities. Anaerobic digestion is increasingly the obvious first choice for municipal SSO.

Food industry liquids and solids

The food processing industry is large and diverse. (Great feedstocks come from the industries that produce food for both human and animal consumption). Virtually any type of waste produced by the food-processing sector makes a great feedstock for your digester. In particular, this includes liquid wastes--fats, oils and greases, wastes produced by on-site, food-industry wastewater treatment plants, and wash waters. Most of these materials contain energy in one form or another that can be used by a digester. More importantly, liquid wastes of this type can supplement or even replace the water supply that digesters need to operate. We try to incorporate liquid wastes into our designs whenever we can.

a wide range of farm wastes

Many on-farm digesters are built around the processing of manures, especially from the dairy and beef industries. But a wide range of other wastes that may be generated on the farm can also be utilized, including spoiled feed, crop residues, and other housekeeping wastes.

sewage sludges and septage

There is a long history in North America of using anaerobic digesters to process and stabilize organic sludges that are produced by the operation of municipal wastewater treatment plants. Increasingly, opportunities are being exploited to add other materials, such as food waste and fats, to existing municipal sewage facilities, to significantly boost their energy production. This is something we can do for you.

energy crops

Much of the European digester industry has been created to process energy crops--field crops that are grown and harvested expressly as a feedstock for energy production in a digester. Energy crops can also be considered as a supplement to bring more feedstock to an existing digester that was built primarily to process other types of waste.